IS DEMOCRACY THE END OF HISTORY?

DR. JAVED A. ANSARI

College of Management Sciences PAF-Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology vp2@pafkiet.edu.pk

Of course not, for I am no democrat and the purpose of this paper is to persuade you not to be one either. Why Democracy? Let me begin by listing some standard objections to democratic phenomena. Democratic societies are invariably dominated by entrenched bureaucratic elites. This is the case throughout Europe, in America and in Japan. The institutionalization of the democratic process is virtually synonymous with the process of the bureaucratization of society. Bureaucratized societies are inevitably dominated by an elite which monopolizes all types of power cultural, economic, political. Elections become merely a means for a circulation of segments within this elite. Is it any wonder that political participation measured, for example, by election turn out rates has continued to decline (with rare exceptions) throughout Europe and America for the last fifty years? The disillusionment with democratic system is fully understandable only if we are prepared to ask some fairly basic questions. The first of these is: why do people in capitalist societies desire the rich life. The second (even more basic) question is: ought we to desire this kind of life? In the rest of this paper Ill try and answer these questions rather informally. In answering the first question Ill describe the capitalist way of life. In answering the second Ill try to show you why we should revolt against the capitalist way of life and opt for a life of love. A rich life Perhaps its best to begin with John Stuart Mill liberalisms most enduring theorist. Mill was a utilitarian; he believed that the purpose of all action is the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain (as conceived in mainstream psychology). But unlike his teacher Jeremy Bentham, Mill also had a respect for rights. Now liberalism recognizes two kinds of rights; individual or human rights (property, life, belief) and welfare rights (equality of opportunity, provision of basic

necessities). Mill believed that unless the rules that guaranteed the existence of these rights were rigorously observed, utility maximization was impossible. Why? Because (according to Mill) unless these rules were observed conflicts between individual and total utility maximization could not be resolved. Thus if I steal I increase my utility. But if everyone steals and there are no sanctions against theft, the capitalist property system will collapse and total utility will fall. It is therefore necessary that individual rights be protected in the interest of the long run maximization of total social utility. Similarly, welfare rights also need to be respected according to Mill who did not believe in any operation of the invisible hand. The interest of the weaker section of society had to be protected if their allegiance to capitalism was to be retained. The formal theory about all this has been developed by John Rawls in the context of his socalled Difference Principle. Welfare rights are a means for showing everyone including the least privileged that the capitalist life is richer than any other life. So respect for rights is a means for the respect of the point of view of the whole. This is merely acceptance of the view that the ought to be maximized is total (not individual) utility. Mill realized that only members of the elite could fully subscribe to this view he was therefore in favor of limiting the franchise. Mill and other nineteenth century liberals Bosenquet, Hobhouse, T.H. Green recognized the need for the emergence of a particular type of character if the rich life was to be realized. This conception was fundamentally flawed in that it sought to combine two divergent tendencies. The person taking the point of view of the whole is participative, rational and deliberative in his public life. But in his inner or private life he is assumed to be impulsive and capricious. He acquires his ends voluntaristically not through a process of cognition. His self is a vast nothingness which can possess ends but cannot be constituted by them. Such a self seeks not knowledge of itself but knowledge only of the world the possibility of self knowledge is ruled out axiomatically. Knowledge of the world is sought solely for the gratification of desires of such a self (lets call him J). Moreover, since liberalism provides no basis for evaluation of these desires, private morality is impossible. Js worth as a person is not determined by the quality of his feelings or the nature of his emotional life. This has very important implications. As a liberal, J is a self interested self who wills what he wills voluntarily and is incapable of evaluating the quality of his feelings. J is an isolated self. He recognizes R but only as another isolated self interested self equally incapable of evaluating the quality of her feelings. Hewn recognizes her as one such self J demonstrates his inability to love R to bridge the gap that fractures his being. For being is not J and R. Being is J-R. J and R are two persons but one being, J-R. Their relationship is that of union not of possession or contract. But democracy denies this. It denies the possibility of love. Democracy regards J and R as equal and isolated

individuals whose only possible relationship can be that of contract a contract through which they use each other for the achievement of shared ends. Democracy provides the political framework through which such equal and isolated individuals realize shared ends. It provides a framework for the recognition of all ends as equally legitimate and for the structuring of unavoidable clashes of irreconcilable interests. Since there are no bases in liberal democratic societies for evaluating desires the desires of a saint and an atheist, of a mother and a homesexual are treated as of equal worth the only ground for the ultimate reconciliation of conflicting interests is that of accumulation. Democracy facilitates an expansion of means income, wealth, power, authority for the satisfaction of any desires. The liberal community is held together by its unqualified commitment to the priority it accords to the accumulation of means. The liberal communitys commitment to both democracy is conditional on the ability of democratic organizational forms to facilitate accumulation. The over-riding democratic ideal is freedom the ability of the isolated unreflective self to will and possess any end. The quest for freedom is a quest for postponing indefinitely the realization of ends in favor of an endless accumulation of means. The quest for freedom is never ending for accumulation takes the form of capital, itself an infinite abstraction. The point of view of the whole is merely the point of view which accords unrelenting primacy to the accumulation of capital. Only the elite an ever diminishing breed unreservedly commits itself to this point of view. Only members of this elite are truly isolated, really free. Only they are true embodiments of the subjectivity of freedom, capable of appreciating the spirit and culture of the modern world its art, its music, its architecture. Only they recognize the implications of according priority to accumulation and are prepared to pay the terrible price that a rich life extracts. The masses on the other hand do not share this commitment. The masses are not free. They are controlled and manipulated victims of both retributive and distributive injustices, imperfectly indoctrinated into accepting the morality of lust and greed. From time to time the masses go wild, protest against the regimentation and monotony of democratic society where the political framework is never itself in question and where the policies of ostensibly rival parties become increasingly indistinguishable. In the absence of a revolutionary leadership explicitly rejecting the morality of freedom and espousing the morality of love such revolts are easily deflected by the articulation of a strategy of co-option of trade unions, ethnic movements etc. The masses are taught the lesson that the gilded chains of freedom can never be discarded. The terrible moral degradation that accompanies democratization had been foreseen by Plato and Aristotle. Thus Plato in his famous Republic rejects the democratic order because in his view it promotes lust and ambitiousness, leads to an unequal distribution of wealth and power and corrupts both the public and the elite. Aristotle

argued (in both Politics and Ethics) that democracy has no telos (no overall aim). This is democracy stood on its head. For the elite which dominates democracy has the telos of nothingness it seeks ever expanding nothingness, freedom, in which the isolated individual can will and possess any end, all ends being equally worthless. Rousseau sought to avoid this terrible catastrophe by inventing the fiction of the social contract. By ruling collectively, continuously and absolutely the people create a socially redemptive secular order and thus overcome the moral depravity characteristic of liberal democracy. Not Athens but Sparta was Rousseaus ideal. But the miraculous transformation in character is not firmly rooted in a metaphysical system which can specify the nature of the redemption that is supposed to occur socially. Rousseau and Voltaire destroyed Christian belief in France but the demons whose worship they advocated the individual, the nation are capable only of leading man to hell. Social redemption is pure fiction and the communitarian democracies which have sought its realization have inevitably collapsed. Communitarian democracies have historically taken two forms; nationalism or socialism. In both the individual is induced to collapse his being in a human totality the nation or the class. But this human totality pursues the same ultimate goal, the goal of freedom, that liberalism sanctions. Communitarianism conceives of the totality as a super ego an individual writ large and is thus quite unable to provide a metaphysical basic for transcending the putrid morality of avarice (accumulation) and jealousy (competition) which liberalism sanctions. J-R is expected to eschew self interest so that society as a whole can practice this very same self orientation. Is it any wonder that mass and elite disillusionment with nationalism and socialism soon assumes universal proportions and a restoration of the old (liberal) regime becomes only a matter of time. The democratic order, whether individual or communitarian, can only institutionalize the morality of avarice (accumulation) and jealousy (competition) for its telos is nothingness the demon it worships is Freedom. Democratic structure facilitates a universalization of the worship of freedom. Thus universal franchise is a means for articulating the principle that every individual is equal in that his preferences are as legitimate as any other preferences. Representation permits an aggregation of these preferences on the one hand and on the other by facilitating the recognition of the principle of the inviolability of human rights (this is the basis of all constitutional regimes) it forecloses the possibility of assigning value to these preferences except in quantitative terms. The more J participate in this system, the more self centered he becomes for such participation makes it impossible for him to value preferences his own or Rs. If J cant value preferences he cant love R he cannot make her ends his own or realize the heaven that is pre-ordained being with R. As Heidegger said, forgetfulness of being is the defining characteristic of this age of vulgarity. Democracy makes of us persons without being. We exist without essence, we have no qualities and no character. We are zombies and not men. There is J and R but no J-R. Since concerns about quality value disappears democratic societies are necessarily dominated by bureaucracies both public and private. Michels saw this a

hundred years ago. He showed both how and why democratic organizations are transformed into oligarchic bureaucracies dominated by a professional elite over which the masses have virtually no control. The rule of this bureaucratic oligarchy is legitimized on the basis of a social consensus which sanctions only the quest for increase (riba). Riba is pure quantity. The masses and the elite single mindedly seek to pursue the fastest possible rate of increase in pure quantity there is no disagreement about this being the single, unchangeable social priority. (About everything else there is apathy or cynicism). Public communication and the education system stress social consensus and legitimize the rule of the bureaucratic oligarchy which demonstratably possesses the super rationality and the hyper ruthlessness to maximize welfare. Its rule is challenged and even then only spasmodically when it is seen to fail in this task. As noted earlier, these challenges or revolts are easily contained since the challengers continue to espouse the telos of nothingness and the quest for increase in pure quantity continues to dominate their individual lives. Democratic theory assumes that Javed is a person without being (without R). He has no Resalind (we read As you Like It, didnt we). There is no J is being with R. Democratic practice makes Javed a solitary person. The real complex and changing individual is politically separated from his being from R, from God. Personhood is improvised and by denying God, abandoning R, J destroys his being. He becomes acquisitive, lustful, jealous and self-centered. Abandoning R destroys creativity. The disintegration of the family and near-zero population growth are universal characteristics of democratic societies. Democratic societies are barren, impotent, dead societies in which men with head pieces filled with straw seek only satisfaction of their lust. Heaven, for J is pre ordained being with R; it is nothing else. R is Gods greatest gift to J a gift bestowed on him not because of any thing he did or can do but as an act of pure divine grace. He is not now and can never be truly worthy of this gift for R symbolizes unimaginable beauty and limitless love. She is the most precious, most cherished, element in Js being. She is as pure as sacred, as holy as prayer. She is a different person but not a separate being. J-R is one being. J-R is prior to J and R. J is because J-R, united in submission to God and stewardship of the world.

Democracy denies the heaven that is pre-ordained being with R. It creates the illusion that J can create heaven on earth through accumulation. But a denial of the heaven that is pre-ordained being with R is a denial of all objectivity. The seeker after freedom the object of democracy that is merely a vast nothingness is necessarily a cynic who doubts the validity of all substantive laws and moral prescriptions except those which are universaliable. Since no such laws can exist, Kants categorical imperative lacks all substantive content and is pure form. A denial of all objective criteria for determining value and worth is ultimately a denial of being. It is a denial of the reality that is pre-ordained being with R in submission to God and in stewardship over the world. By denying this being in its twin

manifestations that of submission and that of stewardship solitude is assumed, the solitude of the predator. In such a situation J can only appear, he cannot be for he has lost R and this is an irreparable loss. Without R, J can neither worship God nor care for this world. Losing R is losing life itself for she is his heart and without the hearth there can be no life. Abandoning R leads to being abandoned by God and immersion in a sea of delusions and whispers (waswasa). In this world J can dream any dream he chooses for every dream is equally unreal. He can will and possess any end without reference to reality. There exists no basis for judging appearances for by assuming solitude (Kant calls this authenticity) and abandoning R, J wills the non-existence of reality. The solitary apparition that is freedom seeking J must deny the reality that is J-R and the reality that is J (A Allah, W World). Abandoning R is denying the possibility of love and without love there can be no community. The quest for freedom is a total denial of the possibility of union. An expansion of the concept of citizenship or a reassertion of the sphere of civil society over the state through reducing bureaucracy increasing participation etc. can never take the place of a search for truth and for acceptance of this truth. By denying the possibility of truth (both as love and surrender) democracy fails to address the problem of being. It cannot help to answer the question; who am I? (J); What am I to become? It provides grounds only for according permanent priority to accumulation of its own sake. The satisfaction of needs must be structured in accordance with the rationality based on this worship of nothingness. This never ending, senseless quest for more and more and more pure quantity, this deadly serious insanity, has been graphically depicted as purposefulness without a purpose by Kant. Abandoning R and having been abandoned by God, J keeps on endlessly conquering this world, purposelessly expanding the space in which he can will and possess his arbitrarily willed ends but the ends that can be willed within democracy become more and more constrained by capitalist rationality. J can will only that which is consistent with the overwhelming social priority that is accorded to accumulation for its own sake the unrelenting quest for nothingness. That is why in democratic regimes administration rapidly takes the place of politics and choice is severely constrained. The seeker after nothingness is not free to choose. He is conditioned through indoctrination, mass communication, public education, other socialization processed and above all competition to want only that which the system can provide. Abandoning R and forgetting God, J plunges into the hell that is nothingness (increase in pure quantity, takathur, riba). By denying his need to love and be loved (the quest for union) he denies his being (J-R), mutilates his nature and rapes the earth. He is neither man nor beast but a demon unashamed. Both Kant and Marx pretended that capitalist rationality would be superseded in the end. (But if there is no beginning, no metaphysical premises for the evaluation of need, how can there be an end ?). In the Kingdom of Ends and in communism the

world will be a forum for expression. In that fantasy world J will be fully reconciled to his beinglessness his separation from R. He will be reconciled to the Vedic teaching that it is all right for anything to be anything for all is all play. Life is just a flickering shadow on the wall of a cave, a shadow with myriad appearances which depicts the reality of illusion and makes it possible for us to dispense with seriousness and celebrate absurdity for ever and ever. That this vision is unrealizable was foreseen by the ancient Greeks Aristotle formulated this argument, at the most tedious length, in his doctrine of the eternity of the world. The collapse of the Communist regimes of East Europe shows that man is quite unwilling to abandon his faith in purposefulness without purpose. Socialism is not a process of transition to Communism it is merely a detour often a blind ally along the capitalist road. This is because socialism provides no (metaphysical) basis for transcending the morality of avarice (accumulation) and jealousy (competition). Socialism, like Capitalism, seeks to reconcile J to his supposedly eternal separation from R. Forget R and make the world your play thing is the message of both liberal and socialist democracy. But Javed can never forget R he can never be reconciled to this separation for its only reason / causative is his sin. He must remember and lament and struggle and pray to end this separation for being with R is his only heaven. There can be no other. A Life of Love Do you remember Rosalind ? Do you remember, when Jacques said The worst fault you have is to be in love, Orlando replied It is a fault I will not change for your best virtue. For it is this fault which makes possible the discarding of the life of painted pomp. What is it to be in love? As Silvis said It is to be made of all sighs and sorrows. It is to be made of all faith and service. All adoration, duty and observance All humbleness, all patience All purity, all trial . To be in love is to participate in Rosalinds existence by feeling for her. Psychology is a (failed) attempt to subject feelings to rational analysis. The psychologists regard feelings as a disturbing element which deflects thought from its rational norm. But feelings are an independent source for the validation of knowledge the heart has its own reasons. Feelings are a way of appreciating the whole through participation in truth a way not accessible to discursive thought for its appreciation of truth is always from the outside, always as an observer, always partial. Discursive thought can never provide the insights that participationing reality can.

To the participant in truth, reality is not merely an external, observable phenomenon emotions cannot be understood by behave moralists. I know my Rosalind better than I know the world for I participate in her existence. We share our inwardness. Rosalind has a body but for me she is much more than a body. Through feelings it is possible for us to transcend our bodies. Like physiology, psychology can tell me nothing about my Rosalind for psychology is not concerned with her self as a constituent of our being. Rosalind has a body but she is not just in it. She is also (and primordially) in my heart. By loving Rosalind I participate in constituting with her a shared subjectivity the essence of which is love. Feelings are thus a way of directly participating in the world. Heidegger speaks of Gesthimmtheit being attuned to the world. (The Sufis speak of Haal in much the same way). We participate in the totality of our existence through feelings. Heidegger also describes feelings as Befindlichkeit how one finds oneself. Feelings determine how one finds oneself in a given situation. How I find myself determines the insights I can develop. This is not insight as an observer but insight into a situation to which Javed belongs. The problem is to develop feelings which can allow J-R to develop a correct insight into their real, total situation. Feeling thus involves both intention (niyyat) and affection (ikhlas) intention to become and belong to J-R and affection to that which is. Without intention and affection insight into J-Rs real total situation cannot be achieved. Feelings characteristic of democratic societies are avarice (accumulation) and jealousy (competition). They disclose that J does not find himself at home by accumulation and competition he seeks to dominate R. If these are his feelings she can never belong to him for he can never belong to her and they can never belong to their real total situation. They are forever not at home. That is why democratic orders always attack and destroy the family for in these orders J and R are antecedently separated. They are always trying to get some place else. They can never be at home. The fundamental (ontological) feeling of modern man is anxiety Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger are agreed on this. Anxiety is revelatory of the human condition in democratic societies that is why psychology and economics take the place of religion in democratic societies. Anxiety is the stock in trade of these disciplines and the justification and promotion of anxiety is their only project.

According to Kierkegaard, anxiety is prior to being, for J is anxious even in the state of innocence (there is therefore no being, no J-R, no heaven). J is anxious because he is conscious of his loneliness. Anxiety relates to no specific object but is a permanent feature, a defining characteristic of humanity. Anxiety creates an awareness of modern mans total situation in the world. It reminds J that the is not and can never be at home. According to Heidegger, That in the face of which one has anxiety is being in the world as such - - - that in the face of which anxiety is anxious is completely indefinite.

In democratic societies J falls into inauthentic being with R. He uses her as an instrument of his will dominates her (jealousy). He is lost in the busyness of his concern with the world of things (accumulation). That which arouses anxiety is nothing (in democratic society this takes the form of the accumulation of capital) and is nowhere (for J-R is prior to J and R and being with R is Js only heaven). Anxiety throws J back upon his self and spurs his quest for the freedom which is pure possibility. But as Sartre saw the quest for freedom is absurd, for freedom creates anxiety both in the face of the future which is nothing and of the past which I have lost. The exercise of freedom as a quest illustrates the impossibility of love of being as J-R. Moreover, despite its presumed necessity, the quest for freedom is necessarily limited by death and by facticity. Nature always defeats freedom. To be human is to be bound. For J must die. Moreover, J does not choose to be the existent that he is. J just has to accept his particularly, his specifity, his historical situation. The past (being with R) is lost and the future is nothing. Js origin and destination are unfathomable mysteries. Js possibilities are thus necessarily tactical, limited. J has been thrown into a particular existence much as a gambler throws a dice. He may come up healthy or sick, rich or poor, intelligent or stupid. Reason cannot tell him why he has the capacities he has or why he is antecedently separated from his Rosalind. If J is a consequence of throwness (the term is Heideggers) he can have no personal morality. He has the desires he has for no knowable reasons. He does not choose the desire he has. He is a receiver not a creator of objects. Because psychology accepts this ontology, its practitioners have no qualms in recommending sin, justifying lust and avarice and jealousy and self love. These are the personal attributes of the typical citizen of democratic society. Is it any wonder that such an individual finds himself perpetually not at home in his own body thus making psychology possible? The limited freedom that facticity permits J is abruptly cut off by death. Man is aware of death in the democratic order not as a fulfillment of life but as a violent cutting off of existence. Death is the supreme possibility of existence. The liberal decocratic order seeks systematically to exclude all considerations of the problem of individual death as long as possible. It is incapable of evaluating the quality of feelings on the basis of the reality that is death and the after life. It pretends to imagine an artificial after life Kant called it the Kingdom of Ends. Marx the stage of communism which legitimizes a validation of norms. But since this pretended after life is nothing Kants categorical imperative and his kingdom of ends are pure form. Only an instrumentalist private morality can be endorsed in a democratic order. Such an order simply has no basis for the recognition of the worth of virtue. It is condemned to forget being and incapable of appreciating existence as a whole. Heidegger is profoundly mistaken in his belief that accepting death as an ultimate possibility enables J to avoid falling. For death cannot be accepted as qualifying all Js possibilities unless J believes in the reality of the after life the possibility of the restoration of being with R which is his only heaven. No such conception of the after life is possible in a democratic dispensation.

If death ends existence, there can be no knowledge of the whole. Existence is the transcendence of instants. There were instants when I experienced my Rosalind and these instants have fled. But by remembering the slightest folly that ever love did make (me) run into, I can realize the possibility of being with her all the time. Rosalind is not just my past. She is my present and my future. By continuing to remember her I bring her into my present and by repentance and suffering and prayer I can will a future in which being with her (my only heaven) is restored. I can combine in Rosalind my past, present and future Falling into the world is forgetting Rosalind. Attaining the eternal is combining my past, present, future in being with Rosalind. I must will this eternity, not just wish it. Willing (as against wishing) must take account of the real possibilities of the restoration of being with R. My future can never be of my making for my past had not been of my making either. I had done nothing to deserve Rosalind. Encounter with her was purely a gift from God. I proved unworthy of this gift. I lost her because of my selfishness, my inability to share with her my whole being. I proved to be a man of bad faith. I lost my Rosalind because I sinned. I am guilty because I did not will being with R in the past. I am guilty because I do not will this being as I ought to will it in the present and am therefore fearful of losing being with R in the future. Being with R is my only heaven and losing it I cannot escape hell. To will being with R, I must have hope, and hope is faith, and faith is faith in God the only alternative is faith in the nothingness that is freedom. Guilt can be overcome by practicing the virtues that earn Gods forgiveness. The essence of virtue is taqwa, the integral awareness of my total dependence on God. Taqwa makes possible a manifestation of the love of God in all relations with all being. It makes it possible for me to see the divine in not just J-R but in all others. This requires Sabr on the one hand and Ihsan on the other virtues representing the twin aspects of Taqwa. Taqwa, Sabr and Ihsan constitute the morality of love and are an ethical refutation of avarice (accumulation) and jealousy (competition) which are manifestations of the morality of freedom. The practice of the morality of love makes possible the restoration of my heaven being with R. Through suffering and repentance and prayer I evoke Gods forgiveness and His grace. God loves me much, much more than I deserve to be loved. For has He not promised I will run towards you when you walk towards me? Through suffering and repentance and prayer J explores the possibility of becoming what he really is, J-R. The uniqueness of my being is manifested in the reality that is not in an authenticity in which J seeks to mould himself in his own image by separating himself from R and from God. Kantian authentically is pure form. It requires J to invent his own values for he has been abandoned by God. Dosteyevsky said since there is no God, everything is permitted. He should have added but nothing is

possible. Abandoning God necessarily implies Js submission to nothing (freedom). Abandoning God must involve abandoning R this is the meaning of the quest for freedom a freedom in which Javed plays at being God and becomes a demon. In this hell of his own making the crushes, smothers, devours his Rosalind to satiate his lust. For the seeker after freedom Hell is other people as Sartre put it. Being with R is being in hell if freedom not love is the basis of being. In this hell everything is as absurd and vicious and worthless as everything else. Being with R must be based on love and love is being determined to action by the love of God. My master, Sheikh Abd-ul Qadir Jilani, has taught know that God alone is your Friend for He alone loves you for your own sake. The worth of virtue can only be determined on the basis of the will of God. Only on this basis can I will a particular form of being. The self cannot be the source of this type of validation regarding the self to be such a validator is democracys primary error. The self is merely the seat of desire. Self love is the love of desire. It takes the form of lust (Shehwat) or wrath (Ghazab) and manifests itself in the act of dominance. Freedom is a manifestation of self love. It takes the form of liberalism when the focus is on the satisfaction of lust (maximization of utility). It takes the form of nationalism and socialism when the quest if for power. In both manifestations the intensification of desires not their transcendence is the result. For when Javed loves his own desire, he makes of R an instrument and inflicting pain on her becomes a source of pleasure for him. Loving ones own self is the ultimate perversion of being. Heidegger recognizes the existence of an upper or a discriminating self (as does post Hegelian philosophy) but he also recognizes that its discourse is silence. In this perception there can be no universal morality for no individual conscience can speak with purity and it cannot therefore serve as a universal. Only the explicit word of God can validate a claim, assign a value. The self can acquire the capacity of discrimination only by reference to the command of God (Ruh) and His Word (Quran). This reference makes possible both self knowledge and transcendence from the lower to the discriminating self (nafs-i-lawama). It makes possible a further transcendence from discrimination to contentment, (nafs-imutmaina) from existence to being. It makes it possible for Javed to appreciate existence as a gift from God for another existent his Rosalind was given to him as a pure gift. It shows him that he has the option of transcending the bounds of his existence and through suffering and repentance and prayer straining for being with R, (heaven).

Love is another word for knowing reality as it ought to be known. The need to know is inextricably intertwined with the need to be. Thus there is a personal factor involved in all knowing. This is particularly important in knowledge of our being J-R and knowledge of our situation (metaphysical knowledge). The moderns are increasingly reluctant to know J-R and Psychology is in this sense the ultimate perversion of epistemology for it regards reality to be a mere hallucination of J. His conception of

merely reveals the delusions from which he suffers. The attempt to humanize the knowledge of God, reflects only the inability of its authors to develop any understanding of Js destiny as J-R. Hence the necessary tragedy of modern thought. The nature of this tragedy becomes evident when one examines the psychologists understanding of love. Thus Unamano speaks of love when it struggles against destiny overwhelming us and giving us a glimpse of a world in which destiny is overcome and liberty is law. It is this conception of love which underlies Learys classification of inter-personal traits where dominance is contrasted with submission and hostility with love. A moments reflection will show that his is not love at all. It is a perversion of love. If J seeks domination and R accepts submission there can be no J-R, ony J. In this perversion of being J plays at being God. By making R his slave, he struggles against destiny and seeks to make his liberty law. He falls a victim of self love which is a contradiction oin terms, for self love is lust pure and simple. If Javed loves his self, he can have no Rosalind for R is simply a means for the satisfaction of his lust or an object on which he vents his worth she cannot be part of his being for he is incapable of being J-R or is it any wonder that wives experiencing and accepting such love exhibit masochistic tendencies and husbands articulating this type of love are sadists (as Kreitman, Hoeg and Revitck have repeatedly found). Love cannot be of self for self must love being J-R. Self rejoices in its destiny (heaven J-R) and does not struggle against it. It is content for its primordial feeling is not anxiety but hope (and joy). Javed exults in and is overwhelmed by the beauty of his Rosalind. He is wonder struck by his miraculour encounter with her and extremely grateful to God for having given him such a precious, cherished, marvelous gift. Though I have lost my Rosalind, I hope of R a better world in which I shall desire more love and knowledge of her. I will this world by suffering and sacrifice and repentance and prayer. God wills it too for He loves me much more than I desire to be loved. I turn to my God in humility and contentment and proclaim with all my heart Thy will be done. And the angels say Amen. Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose be merry. These our tears are tears of joy for our God has not abandoned us He has shown us the way. Journey along this way requires the willing of being, of Reality. Reality is love (not freedom) and Love has two intertwined moments; the moment of the adoration of God (Ibadat) and the moment of the execution of His commands in this world (khilafat). Living in these moments makes being possible and the attainment of being is entirely dependent on the will of God it cannot be willed in defiance of His will that is why the Sufi masters are unanimous in describing both the lover (J) and the beloved (R) as Fuqara for as Sayyidna Isa said the kingdom of heaven (being with R) belongs to the poor who are blessed. To will faqr you must reject the rich life. You must reject freedom.

These are my reasons reasons of my heart and of my mind by which I seek to persuade you to reject freedom, choose love, will reality. When you are sitting comfortably Ill tell you how this can be done, but Hast any philosophy in thee Shepard ?

Note: All unspecified quotations are from William Shakespeare play As you like it.